Attack of the “Man-gina”!

Peak	Mt Wilson
Group	N/A
Trailhead	My Wilson Park

So this is a BEAUTIFUL trail with tons of shade and awesome views of what we THOUGHT was a snow capped Baldy? But the constant climb up…..Up…….UP, was considerably different than what I’m used to hiking. Before signing up for this Six Pack of Peaks which is helping me prep for Whitney (fingers crossed, we find out tomorrow 24th) I was hiking El Cajon Mountain here on SD. TOTALLY different experience comparing the two.

El Cajon is a little longer at 16 mi in/out, and MUCH STEEPER, and paractically no shade at all……however it’s up AND sometimes down trail to the top offers small breaks where you can reenergize and prep for the next “wall” so to speak.

Wilson on the other hand…..when you’re going up…..it’s just up. I suffered a nearly “day wrecking” cramp on my inner quad about 1/2 mile from the top (water water water!!). Or, as one of the groups FEMALE members was so happy to point out when asked why we were stopping……..”Conrad got a cramp in his “Mangina”! A quick salt water solution was whipped up and after a couple of minutes stretching it out we were back on the trail.

The bathrooms, COLD water, and hot coffee at the top were a refreshing surprise. I completely forgot there was an observatory and public road to the top.

After about an hour at the top waiting for the rest of our group to summit so we could get group photos, the majority of us descended……and that was no cakewalk either, pun TOTALLY intended! My toes and top of my feet were SOOOO OVER the squished feeling on the way down that I almost discarded the boots when we hit the driveway at the bottom.

Overall it was a BEAUTIFUL day and perfect weather. We encountered many people whe were not going all the way up, so after about 3 miles on we ran into fewer and fewer groups.

Awesome time. I am new to the group so it was really fun getting to know my new “mates”. Next up….Baldy!